ARM urges mobile industry to give consumers ‘real-life’ IoT value

Consumers won’t care about the Internet of Things until it brings value to their lives, ARM has told Mobile.

Speaking at Mediatek’s Executive Forum in London earlier this month, the chip maker explained that bringing IoT into the market will take time as the industry needs to provide consumers with real-life uses.

James Bruce, director of mobile solutions, told Mobile: ‘What the consumers care about is devices that bring value to their lives, and when IoT starts to be deployed in people’s home, it won’t be thought of as IoT. I think the breakthrough will come from a combination of IoT areas – if you look at smartphones it actually took about 10 years for that ecosystem to be built up.

‘The industry needs to have the right software and hardware and deliver use cases to consumers. Suddenly smartphones moved from a geeky b2b use case to mass market, and the same will happen with IoT. It will take time but once that ecosystem is in place then you will see very rapid adoption – years ago no one was talking about smart meters – but it does depend on the market.’

The chip maker has focused on building up relationships within the industry to accelerate the creation of an IoT ecosystem, recently partnering with IBM to ‘empower companies’.